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Post by tom on Nov 2, 2019 21:02:04 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on Nov 2, 2019 21:36:34 GMT -5
A few takes from the site posted by Tom: Doug Seus has worked with grizzlies for 33 years and says that never a day goes by when he's not amazed by what they're capable of. He says that his Kodiak Bart the Bear was at least as intelligent as a chimpanzee and was still not that remarkably intelligent as grizzlies go. He recounts a story in which a flash flood had washed a Coke can and a thorny hawthorn tree into a ditch alongside his Utah home. Bart attempted to retrieve the can but was deterred by the sharp thorns. Looking back and forth from the can to a two by twelve plank lying nearby, Bart picked up the plank and used it to press the branches down so he could retrieve the can. In Stephen Herrero's Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance, the story is told of a radio-collared black bear being tracked on foot by a researcher while the man's father patrolled overhead in an airplane. In order to throw off his tracker, the bear built several nests in different locations, then entered a stream, backtracked 50 yards, and slipped into thick foliage. The man refused to give up and by late afternoon, the sun was melting the snow and rocks appeared. The bear used this to his advantage, stepping from rock to rock, leaving no trail behind. Finally the researcher picked up the tracks again and followed them until they stopped, disappearing into thin air. This time the bear had walked backwards, placing his feet precisely into his tracks, and went back in the opposite direction, eluding the man. Ben Kilham's Among the Bears recounts his experiences raising several different sets of cubs in New Hampshire. Not only did his work show how impressionable they are in their youth and how one bad experience during that formative time can scar them for life, but also that they're capable of altruism, a quality that was previously only thought to be found in human beings. But not only did they show altruism for other bears, but for other forms of life that they encountered! They demonstrated how clever, intelligent, and adaptable to changes in their environment they really are. Testing that intelligence, Kilham presented them with a mirror, hoping to find evidence of self-awareness. In every case, the young bears reacted as if they were meeting another bear, but after sniffing the mirror and running circles around it to find the other bear, they seemed to decide that they were looking at their reflections. They were observed dragging objects in front of the mirror and playing while watching themselves. Kilham concluded that it would never be enough to convince most scientists, but it seemed to him a demonstration of some level of self-awareness.
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Post by brobear on Nov 14, 2019 12:48:02 GMT -5
The Bear Almanac - Second Edition:
Bear intelligence is difficult to assess and should not be compared or measured in human terms. Bears are considered by scientists and naturalists to be highly intelligent animals, based on their ability to learn rapidly and to reason. Curiosity, combined with a high capacity for learning and an excellent memory, may be the key to a bear's intelligence." It leads to learning and knowledge, which is the basis of survival - adaptability to environmental changes and unusual circumstances. Bears learn and remember from a single experience - a food source, a threat, a trap, or a rifle shot. "Bears ... have the biggest brains relative to body size of any carnivore, giving them ample capacity to interpret and remember ...," according to Candace Savage in Grizzly Bears. Studies at the University of Tennessee psychology department indicate that American black bears are highly intelligent, probably more so than many other mammals of the world. "Bears are highly intelligent and individualistic," relates Terry Domico, "and are capable of nearly as many responses in a given circumstance as a human. Some biologists believe the highly adaptable brown bear is intelligent enough to be ranked with primates, like monkeys and baboon." "I would give the grizzly first place in the animal world for brainpower," noted Enos Mills in The Grizzly.
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Post by brobear on Nov 14, 2019 12:48:20 GMT -5
The trend toward increased brain size began about 400 million years ago. Many mammal species showed an increased brain size over time, but then around 40 million years ago, their brain development stopped, and their brains today are very similar to those of their ancestors 40 million years ago. Moles, shrews, and hedgehogs all belong to this group. It is not known what stopped their rate of brain growth. The brains of carnivores, however, continued to show an increase in brain size, and the brains of today's carnivores are larger than those of their ancestors. And among the carnivores, grizzlies have the largest brain relative to body size of any terrestrial carnivore. In grizzlies and other higher mammals, the outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, is very large compared to the total brain volume. The cortex covers the cerebrum, the largest and most complex portion of the brain. It has crucial sensory, motor, and associative functions and thus is pertly responsible for what humans call intelligence. In grizzlies, about 45 percent of the brain is cortex. In comparison, the cortex of a mouse is only about 30 percent of total brain volume; the cortex of a chimpanzee is about 55 percent of total brain volume. Grizzlies are generally regarded as very intelligent, capable of learning from a single experience and capable of solving simple problems. Doug Seus, an animal trainer from Utah who has trained dozens of animals for television and feature films, is the owner of Bart, a 1,500 pound ( 682 kg ) Kodiak bear. Seus says, "I train black bears, wolves, and cougars for film work too. My grizzlies and Kodiaks are the hardest to tame, but the easiest to train; generally, you only have to teach them something once" ( quoted in Chadwick, 1986 ). Behaviorists studying animal intelligence use a number of criteria to evaluate their subjects, including the ability of the animal to learn, especially from a single experience; the ability to form concepts; and the ability to combine experiences into a single pattern, a process which humans call reasoning. The ability to benefit or learn from the experences of others is another factor of intelligence. Conscious thinking and self-awareness are often associated with intelligence. Lance A. Olsen of the University of Montana believes that the ability of grizzlies to find hiding spots where they can see but not be seen demonstrates a degree of conscious thinking that goes beyond pure instinct. Because a lack of a direct system of measuring animal intelligence, most information on the subject is anecdotal. However, as behaviorist D.C.Dennett points out, "ethologists know how misleading and, officially unusable anecdotes are, and yet on the other hand they are often so telling" ( quoted in Mortenson, 1987 ).
British Columbia grizzly biologist Bruce McLellan tells an interesting anecdote on grizzly intelligence that involves a female grizzly that was originally darted in the rear and then set free. Much later, she was caught in a foot snare. When the biologist approached, "she had dug a hole in the ground and was sitting in it in order to protect her butt from being hit by the tranquilizing dart. She had remembered the previous capture three years ago" ( quoted in Domico, 1988 ). As Alberta bear biologist Rob Wielgus jokingly says, the average grizzly bear is "always smarter than your average grizzly bear researcher" ( quoted in Hummel, 1991 ).
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Post by tom on Nov 18, 2019 18:38:56 GMT -5
Another video showing the intelligence of Bears. Here a mother Bear opens a garage door to save here cub inside.
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Post by King Kodiak on Dec 2, 2019 21:05:00 GMT -5
TOOL-USE IN THE BROWN BEAR (URSUS ARCTOS)This is the first report of tool-using behaviour in a wild brown bear (Ursus arctos). Whereas the use of tools is comparatively common among primates and has also been documented in several species of birds, fishes and invertebrates, tool-using behaviours have so far been observed in only four species of non-primate mammal. The observation was made and photographed while studying the behaviour of a subadult brown bear in south-eastern Alaska. The animal repeatedly picked up barnacle-encrusted rocks in shallow water, manipulated and re-oriented them in its forepaws, and used them to rub its neck and muzzle. The behaviour probably served to relieve irritated skin or to remove food-remains from the fur. Bears habitually rub against stationary objects and overturn rocks and boulders during foraging and such rubbing behaviour could have been transferred to a freely movable object to classify as tool-use. The bear exhibited considerable motor skills when manipulating the rocks, which clearly shows that these animals possess the advanced motor learning necessary for tool-use. Advanced spatial cognition and motor skills for object manipulation during feeding and tool-use provide a possible explanation for why bears have the largest brains relative to body size of all carnivores. Systematic research into the cognitive abilities of bears, both in captivity and in the wild, is clearly warranted to fully understand their motor-learning skills and physical intelligence related to tool-use and other object manipulation tasks. Full study here: www.researchgate.net/publication/221863457_Tool-use_in_the_brown_bear_Ursus_arctos
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Post by brobear on Feb 17, 2020 18:50:31 GMT -5
shaggygod.proboards.com/thread/429/bear-intelligence?page=3The evolution of intelligence in mammalian carnivores Kay E. Holekamp and Sarah Benson-Amram "We evaluated puzzle box success in 146 individuals from 39 species in nine families of mammalian carnivores. Of the 146 individuals tested, 48 individuals (32.8%) from 23 species succeeded at opening the puzzle box. The proportion of individuals within each species that succeeded at opening the box varied among families, with species in the bear family (Ursidae, 69.2% of trials), the raccoon family (Procyonidae, 53.8% of trials) and the weasel family (Mustelidae, 47% of trials) being most successful at opening the puzzle box, and those within the mongoose family (Herpestidae, 0%) being the least successful."
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Post by brobear on Feb 17, 2020 18:55:19 GMT -5
www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2532 Brain size predicts problem-solving ability in mammalian carnivores Results We tested one to nine individuals in each of 39 species (mean = 4.9 individuals; median = 5) (Table S1). Of 140 individuals tested, 49 individuals (35%) from 23 species succeeded at opening the puzzle box (Fig. 1A, Table S1, and Movie S1). The proportion of individuals within each species that succeeded at opening the box varied considerably among families, with species in the families Ursidae (69.2% of trials), Procyonidae (53.8% of trials), and Mustelidae (47.1% of trials) being most successful at opening the puzzle box and those within the family Herpestidae (0%) being the least successful (Table S1). Total brain volume corrected for body mass varied among the species that we tested, with Canid and Ursid species having the largest brains for their body mass and Viverrid, Hyaenid, and Herpestid species having the smallest brains for their body mass (Fig. 1B and Table S1).
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Post by brobear on Aug 6, 2020 20:18:49 GMT -5
Brain Size:
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Aug 6, 2020 23:20:33 GMT -5
Few animals rival bears in terms of intelligence.
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Post by brobear on Aug 7, 2020 2:49:01 GMT -5
So, according to this study ( Reply #108 ) the tiger is smarter at problem solving than a lion. Problem solving is ( IMO ) the single attribute of intelligence to target when seeking the smartest animals. Reply #94: Does a Bear Think in the Woods? - very interesting also. ( nice find King Kodiak ).
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Dec 18, 2020 10:32:12 GMT -5
Bear intelligence: Considered by many wildlife biologists to be one of the most intelligent land animals of North America, bears possess the largest and most convoluted brains relative to their size of any land mammal. In the animal kingdom, their intelligence compares with that of higher primates. www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/arctic-bears-bear-intelligence/779/I wonder if this has been posted before. The brain size of the bear explains its intelligence.
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Post by King Kodiak on Dec 18, 2020 11:01:17 GMT -5
That is a great report TheGreen. And the phrase you underlined is really good.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), yes, it was posted almost 4 years ago by brobear, its here:
domainofthebears.proboards.com/post/600/thread
What i do is, if the thread is really short like this one which only has 6 pages, i go thru every page real fast and see if it was posted before.
Like i always say, we have absolutely everything on this forum regarding bears already. Anyhow, i really didnt have a clue it was posted before, who even remembers? So its really good to see it again, its like a refreshment.
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Post by brobear on Dec 24, 2020 2:28:51 GMT -5
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201223125706.htm Survival of the thickest: Big brains make mammal populations less dense. Brain size shown to influence mammal abundance in local areas for the first time. Body size and diet are known to influence mammal abundance in different areas, but brain size had not been considered previously. This new study shows that larger brains correlate with lower population densities, likely because of the additional resources they require.
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Post by brobear on May 28, 2021 5:03:54 GMT -5
www.sci-news.com/biology/ravens-great-apes-cognitive-skills-09152.html 4-Months-Old Ravens Parallel Great Apes in Cognitive Skills, Study Shows. By 4 months of age, the cognitive performance of common ravens (Corvus corax) in experimental tasks is similar to those of two great ape species, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).
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Post by brobear on Oct 6, 2021 10:42:00 GMT -5
www.livescience.com/cats-dogs-intelligence Are cats or dogs smarter? Both are domesticated, but is one smarter? "At its simplest form, cats are smart at the things cats need to do, and dogs at dog things," she said. "I don't think it makes any sense at all to talk about relative 'smarts' of species." Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, agreed with that assessment. "Asking whether a dog is smarter than a cat is like asking whether a hammer is a better tool than a screwdriver — it depends on what it was designed for," he told Live Science in an email. This is not to say that animal behavior researchers haven't tried to measure dog and cat intelligence — or, more precisely, cognitive abilities beyond those needed to sustain life. Kristyn Vitale, an assistant professor of animal health and behavior at Unity College in Maine, said animal intelligence is typically divided into three broad areas: problem-solving ability, concept formation (the ability to form general concepts from specific concrete experiences) and social intelligence. Vitale primarily studies cats, and her current focus on the inner life of cats revolves around social intelligence. Often stereotyped as aloof and disinterested in humans, cats actually show a high degree of social intelligence, "often at the same level as dogs," she told Live Science in an email.
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Post by brobear on Oct 6, 2021 10:53:54 GMT -5
*Note; I knew before reading Reply #115 that the author was not about to answer this ages-old question. The world is pretty-much evenly divided between dog-people and cat-people. No one wants to hurt the feelings of half the world, or have half the world angry with them. I would wager handsomely on the dog winning this contest, based on "problem-solving ability."
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2022 1:27:00 GMT -5
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe2101 The evolution of mammalian brain size Relative brain size has long been considered a reflection of cognitive capacities and has played a fundamental role in developing core theories in the life sciences. Yet, the notion that relative brain size validly represents selection on brain size relies on the untested assumptions that brain-body allometry is restrained to a stable scaling relationship across species and that any deviation from this slope is due to selection on brain size. Using the largest fossil and extant dataset yet assembled, we find that shifts in allometric slope underpin major transitions in mammalian evolution and are often primarily characterized by marked changes in body size. Our results reveal that the largest-brained mammals achieved large relative brain sizes by highly divergent paths. These findings prompt a reevaluation of the traditional paradigm of relative brain size and open new opportunities to improve our understanding of the genetic and developmental mechanisms that influence brain size.
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Post by brobear on Apr 5, 2022 2:59:05 GMT -5
Mammals were not always brainy. Mammals put brawn before brains to survive post-dinosaur world. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220331151526.htm Prehistoric mammals bulked up, rather than develop bigger brains, to boost their survival chances once dinosaurs had become extinct, research suggests. For the first 10 million years after dinosaurs died out, mammals prioritised boosting their body size to adapt to radical shifts in the make-up of Earth's animal kingdom, researchers say. Their findings show that the size of mammals' brains, compared with their body weight, decreased following a catastrophic asteroid impact 66 million years ago that ended the reign of dinosaurs. It had been widely thought that mammals' relative brain sizes generally increased over time in the wake of the wipeout. While much is known about the evolution of the brains of modern-day mammals, it has been -- until now -- unclear how they developed in the first few million years following the mass extinction. A team from the University of Edinburgh has shed light on the mystery by performing CT scans on newly discovered fossils from the 10-million-year period after the extinction, called the Paleocene. Their findings reveal that the relative brain sizes of mammals at first decreased because their body size increased at a much faster rate. Results of scans also suggest the animals relied heavily on their sense of smell, and that their vision and other senses were less well developed. This suggests it was initially more important to be big than highly intelligent in order to survive in the post-dinosaur era, the team says. Around 10 million years later, early members of modern mammal groups such as primates began to develop larger brains and a more complex range of senses and motor skills. This would have improved their survival chances at a time when competition for resources was far greater, the team says. The study, published in the journal Science, was supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, European Research Council, Leverhulme Trust and National Science Foundation. It also involved New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in the US and several international institutions. The idea that big brains are always better to invade new environments or survive extinctions is misleading, according to the research team. Lead researcher Dr Ornella Bertrand, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, says: "Large brains are expensive to maintain and, if not necessary to acquire resources, would have probably been detrimental for the survival of early placental mammals in the chaos and upheaval after the asteroid impact." Because today's mammals are so intelligent, it is easy to assume that big brains helped our ancestors outlast the dinosaurs and survive extinction -- but that was not so, the team says. Senior author Professor Steve Brusatte, also based at the University of Edinburgh, says: "The mammals that usurped the dinosaurs were fairly dim-witted, and only millions of years later did many types of mammals develop bigger brains as they were competing with each other to form new ecosystems." The badlands of northwestern New Mexico are among the few places where scientists can find complete skulls and skeletons of the mammals that lived immediately after the mass extinction of dinosaurs. Dr Thomas Williamson, Curator of Palaeontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, said: "Collecting and CT scanning many of the beautiful fossil skulls has led to this new understanding of what these bizarre animals were like and the evolution of the mammalian brain."
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Post by Montezuma on Apr 26, 2022 22:51:52 GMT -5
Bears play ice hockey.
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